by Lea Geller
-20-
After dragging the boys through the remainder of the memoir unit, I launched into our first novel, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, a book I had actually read as a middle schooler, about which I remembered nothing. I reread it, happy to have something to do in the evenings other than obsess about Jack’s texts, or lack thereof.
“Get out your books, boys,” I began.
“Roll of Thunder, Hear Me Snore,” said Art. He announced this at the beginning of each day since we’d started reading the book. I didn’t even hear him anymore.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Caleb announced.
“Me too,” said Art, looking up at him and grinning.
“Boys,” I said. “Remember the rule—one at a time.”
That rule was Gavin’s, not mine. Apparently when the boys went to the bathroom in clusters, they’d play a game. Whoever was the last one in the stall got pelted with wet paper towels. “That’s why we started peeing in the sinks,” Davey had explained to me.
“Fine,” said Art. “I can wait.”
We pulled out our books, and I began the discussion. I was in the middle of a sentence when Caleb came running in. He looked terrified.
“Ms. P., it was only a joke! I swear!” He raced to his seat and put his head down. Gavin ran into the room and stopped at the door, glaring at Caleb.
“What’s going on, Caleb?” I asked.
Gavin looked furious. His face was red, his ears redder. “Tell her, Caleb. Tell Ms. Parsons what you did when you were presumably on a bathroom break.” Spit was building at the corners of his mouth.
Caleb looked up. He was not crying, but he looked like he might start at any moment. “Something dumb,” he said. “I did something really dumb.” He bit down on his lower lip. It amazed me that, at times, these boys could look like small men, and at others, like right now, like scared little kids.
“That,” said Gavin, “is an understatement.” He looked at me. “While he was supposed to be in your class”—I could feel the blame being laid at my feet—“Caleb decided to do some mirroring.”
Mirroring was when the kids projected images onto a teacher’s smart board without the teacher knowing who was doing it or where it was coming from. The kid didn’t even have to be in the class to do it. Needless to say, it was a popular pastime for some of my boys.
I looked at Caleb.
“I mirrored a picture of Jabba the Hutt onto Ms. Figg’s smart board,” he said, cringing.
“Right in the middle of her class,” Gavin added.
“This is awful,” I said, shaking my head and looking at Gavin. “Just awful. Please let me deal with this, Gavin.” I knew he wouldn’t leave if he didn’t think I was taking this seriously.
Gavin threw back his head and mocked me with a laugh. “How exactly are you planning on dealing with this? The way you deal with everything else? By ignoring it? By pretending these poor little boys can’t help themselves?”
I looked at the boys, who all seemed shocked by the standoff. It was one thing for Gavin to berate them publicly. I don’t think they’d seen him bully a teacher before.
Gavin kept going. “I think I’ve seen enough of your problem solving. I’ll take this one, if you don’t mind.” He said it like he was giving me a choice. He wasn’t.
“Caleb,” he said, looking at Caleb with a smile. “Get out.”
Caleb looked terrified.
“Where is he going?” I asked. “Your office?”
Gavin laughed. “No. Last time he was in my office alone he went into the attendance system and marked all his absences as excused. Then he sent a bunch of emails from my account. No, Caleb can be the inaugural attendee of the detention room in Dowell Auditorium.”
“What?” I asked.
“From now on, kids who get kicked out of class will go to Dowell. No more roaming the halls, no more mischief in my office. I have handpicked detention monitors to confiscate all devices and make sure they do schoolwork.”
“But how do we do work without our devices?” asked Guy.
“Oh, I guess you’ll have to figure that one out for yourself,” Gavin sneered. “I’m sure you’ll be in Dowell soon enough.” He turned his attention to Caleb. “OK, get up,” he ordered.
I started to speak, but Caleb interrupted me. “It’s OK, Ms. P. I’ll go.” He squared his shoulders and bravely followed Gavin.
Gavin looked pleased, which wasn’t any more appealing than Gavin looking displeased. “That’s right, Caleb,” he said. “It’s good to know when you’ve been beaten.” Gavin was speaking to Caleb, but he was looking at me.
That night I sank into the brown couch and stared numbly out the window, barely able to make out the bleak, bare trees against the dark sky. I could sense that winter was going to be rough—the days were short, the light was dim, and the cold seeped in deep, to parts of me I didn’t even know could get cold.
Unlike the air-conditioning, the heat in my house was centralized, but after weeks of trying to get comfortable, I determined that the thermostat was no more than decoration. The heat came on when it felt like coming on, regardless of how much fiddling I did with the dial, and there was no comfortable setting—I either froze or roasted. It was as though the heat were being controlled from an undisclosed location; someone else was deciding how comfortable I would be.
That night, I froze. I was swaddled in layers of clothes—pajamas, a sweatshirt, a vest—and I sat on the couch with a mug of cocoa in my hand. I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around my legs, then closed my eyes for a few minutes. When my phone rang I jumped, spilling a few drops of cocoa on the blanket. A blocked number.
I grabbed the phone and held it to my ear. Too afraid to talk, for fear it would be someone else, I just breathed like an idiot.
“Aggie, it’s me.”
Even if I could have spoken, I didn’t want to. I just wanted to keep listening. Although Don had been assuring me Jack was fine, and although I’d gotten texts from someone I assumed was Jack, when I heard his voice, I realized that there was a piece of me that hadn’t been sure I’d hear it again.
“Aggie?”
“Yes.”
“It’s me,” he said.
“Say it again,” I said.
“What?”
“My name. I need to hear you say my name.”
“Aggie,” he breathed. “Aggie, Aggie, Aggie.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’ve missed you,” he said. “God, how I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too. So much.” It was hard to get air into my lungs, so I leaned forward and propped a pillow behind me.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
“OK?”
“Yes, are you OK?”
Depends on what you mean by OK. I’m lonely. I’m tired. I’m scared. Once I started, I never really stopped being scared.
“I’m OK,” I said. My eyes were stinging. I looked up at the ceiling. “Where are you, Jack?” It hurt to say his name.
“And Grace? Is she OK? How is she?”
“She’s fine,” I said. “She crawled. Where are you, Jack?”
“That’s wonderful. I love you, Aggie,” he said. “I’ll be with you soon, I promise. I’m sorry it’s so hard.”
“It doesn’t have to be this hard.” I swallowed.
I sat in the gaping silence between us, but before I could say anything else, he whispered, “I have to go now. Kiss Grace for me, please.”
“Jack . . .”
“Soon, I promise.” The call ended. Jack was gone.
I dropped the phone and sat frozen on the couch. I could still hear his voice in my head, and for the first time since I got here, I could almost feel his presence. I was afraid to move. I didn’t want to lose him again. Eventually, I let my head drop back and closed my eyes.
I woke up several hours later short of breath and covered in sweat, and the heat wasn’t even on yet. I had Jack on the brain. I couldn’t remember my dream, but I knew he
was in it. I could still feel him in the room.
-21-
All that week, dreaming about Jack kept me awake.
Since I heard his voice that night, my dreams were more vivid, almost Technicolor, and I often woke up in the middle of the night breathless, wanting him more, unable to go back to sleep.
With Jack, sex had always been like restaurants—part of our daily lives, how we measured our week. We ate out on certain nights—if we didn’t, if we couldn’t get a reservation, or didn’t get the right table, Jack would be grumpy. He was the same way about sex. The rules were unspoken, but they were there. There was a four-times-a-week requirement—three weeknights and one on the weekend. If for some reason sex didn’t happen, even for a reason out of our control, Jack was surly, grouchy, almost childlike in his petulance.
Some women would have found his demands burdensome. Beeks certainly had a lot to say about it.
“Are you serious?” she asked during one of the first calls we’d had about Jack.
“Very,” I said.
“Dear Lord. I don’t even brush my teeth four times a week anymore.”
I laughed. “Beeks, you know that I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to.”
“Well, then,” she conceded, “good for you. Have some sex for me while you’re at it, because if these kids don’t start sleeping through the night, I may never have it again.”
I wasn’t just not burdened by Jack’s demands, I was flattered by them. I never worried about Jack looking around, the perennial fear of an LA wife. I’ll admit that there were times, especially in Grace’s first months, when I would have preferred a night off. But then I heard some of the baby-group moms talk about their husbands’ sudden lack of interest. Jack’s interest never waned, and I wore it proudly.
I remember seeing my obstetrician for my six-week postpartum checkup. She gave me the green light for sex but told me that she always advised her patients that they could tell their husbands it was really an eight- or even ten-week waiting period. “You know,” she said, “give yourself some time if you need it.” But Jack was primed, ready to go, and waiting for me when I got home from the appointment. I remember seeing his car in the driveway, my stomach turning slightly at the worry that I wouldn’t be able to give him what he wanted, not just on that day, but ever again. I was worried about the pain, but, truthfully, I was more worried about Jack.
In the days that followed that first phone call, I was more desperate than ever to have Jack back. Whatever he’d done, whatever mess he’d made, I didn’t care. I could feel his hands on me. In the middle of the day. In class. It was disturbing, distracting, but it was also fantastic. I’d never had much of an active fantasy life before, at least not one that involved sex. When I was younger, fantasies were more of the get-out-of-Modesto or the live-free-of-roommates variety. With Jack, I didn’t have time to fantasize much. I had everything I thought I needed. Now I could feel his hands on the small of my back, on my stomach, his fingers pressing into me, pulling me to him. I could feel his mouth all over me at the least appropriate of times, and I could hear him growling quietly in my ears. Suddenly, we were having sex on top of my desk, in the back stairway of MacReady, even on the brown couch. I found myself shaking my head or blinking frantically to bring myself back to whatever the day was demanding of me, but with each passing day, Jack’s hold on my imagination grew stronger.
Even though things were heating up inside my brain, on the Monday before Thanksgiving, the temperature dropped dramatically. Once again, my Santa Monica apparel was insufficient. The lined twill jacket that had protected me in a Southern California winter was like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping flesh wound.
Grace was not faring much better than I was. Dot did her best to mention it without actually telling me that I needed to stop sending my child in substandard outerwear. (She pinned notes to Grace’s thin fleece jacket: “Maybe something warmer for tomorrow?” or “Little Grace was cold on our walk. Time for her winter coat?”)
I knew exactly what I’d be buying if I had been looking for a coat a few months ago, from the comfort of my Santa Monica home, and with the seemingly infinite quantities of Jack’s soon-to-disappear money. I had spied Santa Monica moms wearing flattering, fitted Swiss down coats with a large, obvious logo on the sleeve. Some of my friends wore vests festooned with these logos, because while a full coat would have been unnecessary and almost ridiculous in Santa Monica, they wanted the world to know that should they ever need a down coat, this was the brand of coat they would buy.
It was hard to believe that there was ever a time when a coat that cost several thousands of dollars would easily have been part of my uniform. I was now in the market for a coat that came in at well under one hundred dollars. I had far fewer zeros in my arsenal.
Stacey Figg had given me a coupon for 40 percent off at a website that seemed to specialize in mom clothes. In Modesto, my parents had kept our coupons in a plastic pouch in a kitchen drawer. The pouch had two pockets—one for items we used (we were not picky about things like detergent or toilet paper brands), and another for items we didn’t but might like (fancy cookies in tins, plug-in air freshener). If we were having a good month, we dipped into the second pocket.
“All outerwear is an additional twenty-five percent off this week.” Stacey beamed while standing outside my door one morning. She thrust the coupon at me. “Thanksgiving sale!”
“This is perfect,” I said, buckling Grace into her stroller. “Thank you, Stacey,” I added.
“Wanna have dinner tonight?” she asked. “I can cook.”
I felt bad. This wasn’t the first of her overtures, and if her scrambled eggs were any indication, Stacey’s dinner would put my one chicken dish to shame, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of dodging her rapid-fire questions for more than a few minutes.
“Thanks, but I think Grace and I need an early night. Another time?”
“Sure,” she said. “Whenever. I’m always here.”
That night I went to the website printed on the coupon and thought of my parents. In some ways I’d come so far from the life they’d tried to make for me, but here I was, shopping for a coat with a coupon, and I felt suddenly tethered to them. I got myself into this. I became someone you would not recognize, but look—I have a coupon!
The coats might have been shapeless, but Stacey was right—they were practically free. I scrolled through the options available to me and quickly realized that the less money I spent on a coat, the more likely it would be that I’d look like a walking, overstuffed comforter. I read the reviews, ignoring that most of them came from women who tagged themselves in the forty-five to sixty age range, and saw a coat which got high ratings for warmth. I needed warmth. This mom coat, the outerwear version of the mom-kini, was my only option, and for some reason the coat was even cheaper if I bought it in plum. I also clicked on the children’s section and found Grace a pale-blue coat, as well as matching mittens and a hat.
The coats would arrive in a couple of days, giving me time to figure out what Jack would say when he came and saw me here, in this puffy plum comforter, with its detachable hood and removable lining. I hadn’t heard from him since that first call, but I could hear his voice in my head. “We’ll just have to burn this thing ASAP,” I could hear him say, a wicked grin on his face.
“No,” I would reply. “Let’s keep it. As a reminder.” He’d smile more and pull me toward him. The coat and everything under it would come off.
Our coats arrived quickly. After a grueling day during which Gavin, on a warpath, had marched into my classes on three separate occasions and sent three boys to Dowell, or as the boys had taken to calling it, “the Bowel,” and on which I promised a tearful Guy that his trip home for Thanksgiving was going to be all right even though I had failed to plead his case to his father, Grace and I came home to find an enormous UPS box sitting on the front stoop. I opened the door and kicked the box inside. As soon as I could get Grace down on the floor, I looked ar
ound for scissors, but I didn’t know if I owned any. What mother, let alone what teacher, doesn’t own scissors? I pulled out my house key, slashed open the box, then sat on the floor with Grace to examine its contents.
I’m not ashamed to admit I cried when I tried on the coat. I cried partly because I was so happy to finally dive deep into the embrace of its enormous warmth, but I also cried because wearing it made me feel so far from myself, or at least so far from the self I had been a few months ago. I stood up, pulled the hood over my head, and zipped up the coat. Grace looked at me and clapped for the first time.
“Of course you clapped,” I said, looking at her. “I look like a plum Big Bird.” I caught a glimpse of myself in the dirty full-length mirror I had leaned on the wall facing the brown couch. Jack was on his way to me. I could just feel it. If I did not recognize myself in this coat, would he?
-22-
We were supposed to be going to Beeks’s for Thanksgiving, but on Thanksgiving morning, I woke up tired. It seemed that most mornings I woke up tired. Grace was teething, and when she wasn’t teething, she was having teething flashbacks. Every time a new tooth came in, I had only a matter of weeks until a new one would start to force its way out, tearing at Grace’s little gums and keeping us both awake for nights on end. On some nights she would cry so loudly and for so long that at some point she had no choice but to puke all over the two of us, finally quieting when she had left me wearing a day’s worth of her food. On those nights I joined her and cried. She’d cry for her pain, and I’d cry for Alma. Oh, Alma, how I never fully appreciated all those nights you’d be willing to sleep over (for a price) and take Grace while I slept soundly in a nearby room, eye mask and earplugs in place. Oh, Alma, how I never thanked you enough for those mornings when you’d come early (for a price) and let me sleep late, feeding and playing with Grace until I felt rested enough to emerge from the cocoon of my bedroom. Alma was on the other side of the country, and anyway, I couldn’t afford to pay her more than an hour a week. I wasn’t paying the baby-group moderator her retainer anymore (yes, that’s a thing), so she wasn’t returning my emails. Believe me, I’d tried. I was on my own, so I did what people who can’t pay experts or hire help have to do—I went online and tried to find some free answers to this never-ending teething nightmare.